Calling all cars! Calling all cars! Please be on the look out for men dressed as cowboys! They are believed to be armed and dangerous.

Nah, that couldn’t be what CIA Director Michael Hayden meant when he delivered the following reminder to be afraid. Very afraid (via The AFP):

CIA director Michael Hayden warned Sunday that Al-Qaeda was training operatives who “look western” and could enter the United States undetected to conduct terrorist attacks.

…

“They are bringing operatives into that region for training — operatives that, a phrase I would use, wouldn’t attract your attention if they were going through the customs line at Dulles [airport near Washington DC]* with you,” Hayden told NBC Television.

The new recruits “look western” and “would be able to come into this country … without attracting the kind of attention that others might,” he said.

A translation for those of you who don’t speak bAdminababble:

“We’ve spent years trying to train real Americans to jump every time they see a guy who is darker than Michael Jackson and piss their pants at the thought of actually getting on a plane with one of these Sambos of Arabia. But we’ve just figured out that wily enemy comes in a variety of hues, including plain old normal folks like you and me. Sorry, we would have done it sooner by we were wrestling with the whole Sunnite/Shiite thing. But now we’ve got to make a big deal about this like it’s an amazing discovery so we can keep our cushy jobs. Therefore, as of now it is very important that everyone piss their pants at the sight of guys who look like … er … um … Heh. You’re not gonna believe this …”

I believe you Mike. Though I wish you hadn’t gone the “Western” route and instead said “Caucasian” or “White.” A white guy telling everyone to be a afraid of white guys would have made for one of those Jon Stewart mind-is-boggling moments that I love so much.

However, I appreciate the fact that you’ve got the stones to admit the spooks have been profiling the “attention attracting” people all of this time. There sure are a lot of the buggers, aren’t there?

As with all the warbling from bAdmin’s Seirenes of Security, this raises the issue of what, if anything Hayden thinks we should do about the Pale Menace. Nothin’ that’s what. The point isn’t to do anything about the threat, the point is to remind people that some sort of threat exists. People who aren’t frightened have a distressing tendency to think rationally and maybe get annoyed because they can’t make their house payments, buy gas and eat. And then the terrists win.

A side note. Remember Bush’s Bestest Friend & Ally in The War Against Terror, Pervez Musharraf?

Turns out he totally sucks, it just took the bright sparks at Langley a while to figure it out:

But much of the improvement was merely regaining ground that was lost through what Hayden described as an “absolutely disastrous” hands-off policy in the region by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in 2006 that led to Al-Qaeda’s increased organizational ability there.

Another translation for those of you who don’t speak bAdminababble:

“It was all his fault! He did it! We had nothing to do with it! And if you try to point out we were propping him up and calling him a defender of freedom even as he was throwing judges in jail we’ll stick our fingers in our ears and chant “La la la, I can’t heeear yooooo!”